The official blog for the U.S. Medicare program. For more information, please visit www.medicare.gov

Monthly Archives: September 2011

Flu season is upon us—did you know it can start as early as October? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Get your flu shot now—it’s free for people with Medicare, once per flu season in the fall or winter, when given by doctors or other health care providers (such as senior centers and pharmacies) that take Medicare.

Stay healthy this flu season and help protect your loved ones. Get your flu shot early!

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Have you had your mammogram this year? Mammograms are breast cancer screening tests that can often detect a lump before you or your doctor can feel it. This can help detect breast cancer early, when it’s the most treatable. All women over 40 should have a screening mammogram every 12 months – and Medicare covers it for free if your doctor accepts assignment.

Talk to your doctor about risk factors, and to schedule your next screening. Ask your family members and friends if they’ve had theirs – share the health.

Blood Pressure Control – Medicare covers a blood pressure screening each year as part of your Yearly Wellness Exam.

Cholesterol Control

Smoking Cessation– Medicare covers counseling to help you stop smoking. Talk to your doctor for more information on your ABC

6. Stay strong. Eat a heart-healthy diet that’s high in fresh fruits and vegetables and low in sodium, saturated and trans fats, and cholesterol.

Making lifestyle changes and following these 6 steps can be challenging. Luckily, you don’t need to reach your heart health goals alone. Join Million Hearts, a national campaign from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Million Hearts aims to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes over the next 5 years.

Following these 6 steps – starting with your free Medicare-covered cardiovascular screening – can greatly reduce your risk and help you be one in a Million Hearts.

Every year, people with Medicare get to explore new choices and pick the plans that work best for them. This year, this Open Enrollment period is starting early – on October 15 – and ending sooner – December 7.

As health plans start their marketing and advertising activities in just a few weeks, we want people to know that the Medicare program is strong and, in 2012, they have a broad array of choices. And, there are lots of new benefits thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

Every person with Medicare will have to choose a “Part D” plan to help them pay for prescription drugs. And people who have chosen to enroll in a “Part C” Medicare Advantage plan for their basic health care services have the option of staying in that plan, choosing a different plan, or going back to the Original Medicare program. These are important choices that should be made with care.

The good news is we have strengthened consumer protections and improved plan choices. We’re making it simpler for people to choose a new health or drug plan by reducing the number of duplicate plans. We’ve also worked with plans to reduce cost sharing on important benefits like inpatient hospitalization and mental health services.

And, thanks to our enhanced bargaining power we can report that average premiums for a Part D plan will be the same in 2012 as in 2011. The average premium for Part C plans is going down by 4 percent. That’s great news for people on Medicare who have a fixed income.

As with last year, people with Medicare will continue to have a variety of Medicare Advantage plan choices. Consumers in every part of the country will have a wide variety of Part D plan choices in 2012, including many plans with zero deductibles and plans with some form of generic gap coverage.

People with Medicare are also enjoying important new benefits. Every person is entitled to an Annual Wellness Visit with their doctor so that they can discuss their health and their health care needs. Prevention services like mammograms and other cancer screenings are now available with no cost-sharing. And people who reach the donut hole in their drug costs will get a 50% discount on covered brand name drugs and a 14 percent discount on generics. That puts money back in your pockets.

More good news for consumers is the fact that we’ll be closely monitoring marketplace performance to protect people from misleading information or prohibited tactics by a small minority of unscrupulous plans. Medicare plans are on notice: we’ll move quickly to take action against plans found to be violating marketing rules.

In short, there’ll be a wide range of health and drug plan options available across the country, including Original Medicare. People can turn to www.medicare.gov, call the 1-800-MEDICARE hotline, or consult with a local State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) for help. We want to make sure people can identify and enroll in the coverage option that suits their needs in 2012.

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Announced on September 13, 2011, Million Hearts is a national initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes over the next 5 years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are the co-leaders of Million Hearts within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, working alongside other federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Food and Drug Administration. Key private-sector partners include the American Heart Association and YMCA among others.

Heart disease and stroke are two of the leading causes of death in the United States. Million Hearts aims to improve heart disease and stroke prevention by focusing on five pillars of action:

Prioritize focus and attention around the ABCS (Aspirin for people at high risk, Blood pressure control, Cholesterol management, Smoking cessation)

Encourage the meaningful use of health information technology (HIT) to drive improvement

Deliver care innovations

Foster community innovations

Measure successes and shortfalls in clinical and community prevention

Million Hearts brings together existing efforts and new programs to improve health across communities and help Americans live longer, healthier, more productive lives. To learn more about the Million Hearts Initiative and to Be One in a Million Hearts visit millionhearts.hhs.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Health care decisions can be tough – and they’re even harder when insurance forms, instructions and policy information aren’t written clearly. At Medicare, it’s our job to make sure you can use our materials.

That’s why we’re committed to speaking and writing about the Medicare program in plain language. It’s another way we’re working to make health care information easier for you to use and understand.

The Plain Writing Act of 2010 means that plain language isn’t just good sense – now, it’s the law. As a Federal agency, we’re required to make sure our letters, booklets, Web pages, and any other materials are clear, concise, and easy for you to act on.

We’re working hard to comply with the new law. We’re training our employees, reviewing our materials, and finding new, easier ways to communicate about our programs using the Federal Plain Language Guidelines.

But we need your help—how are we doing here at Medicare?

We’d like you to let us know if you have trouble understanding our documents or the pages on our Web site. We need to know, so we can make these things better.

Most of all, we want to give you the clear and accurate information you need to make good decisions for your family. Tell us how we’re doing.